ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - B - THE LION (Panthera leo)

[GuateGojira]

(02-18-2020, 02:45 AM)Pantherinae Wrote: It just says it was a stock rider we don’t know if that’s all he ate and it sounded like he said in one of the emails the lion was killed after it had attacked a human. neither could I see anyone say he was nomadic and not territorial. 
Asiatic males kills a lot of cattle I was told a while back I will try to track that down when I get the chance. :) I personally don’t think cattle eating it would affect the lions size the same way it would affect the other Panthera cats.

Oh I didn’t know that I just knew about a 186 kg female from East Africa. 

But one question what is different between a cattle killer and a animal that has been baited over a longer period of time? That must also affect the size of an animal.

Like I say, the few evidence suggest an animal that was not quite normal and that ate cattle. As far I know, based in cases of people from Kenya at least, a lion is labeled as cattle killer when they just focus on cattle and the wild life service will not kill the animal just because it hunted a few cows, in those cases there are programs to pay for the cattle killed, to kill an animal is the last resource and in extreme cases. Also, the attack to the human suggest an animal that probably allready had previous conflicts with humans and if we believe in Dr Patterson in his book "The Lions of Tsavo", the lions are normally affraid of humans, but if they got used to them (like a cattle eater) they may attack humans for been easier prey.

In the past, Indian lions were real cattle eaters as they prey base was very low but in new years I read reports that they higher prey base of wild animals corrected the old habit of prey in cattle and that is something that has changed since the years 2000, as far I remember.

The cattle eating behaviour affect to all the Panthera cats in teh same degree, they have the same basic morphology and body needs, so there is no reason to think that an abnormal behavior will afect all the animals of a genus except one.

If the animal is constantly baited, day by day, and it will eat only baits, of course that it will affect the animal size. But if you are baiting an animals once in a year, that obvioulsy will not affect it at all. Reply